[see previous blog entry for an explanation of what I'm doing here.]
BPAL's chocolate note is usually not so great on me, but my luck is much better with cocoa. So I'll give chocolate/cocoa a whirl.
GCs THAT CONTAIN CHOCOLATE/COCOA
Bliss: The serotonin-slathered scent of pure milk chocolate. This one wasn't my fave. The chocolate didn't work so great on me.
Centzon Totochtin: Bittersweet Mexican cocoa with rum, red wine, and a scent redolent of sacrificial blood. I like this one, but it's not my favorite because of the red wine.
Gluttony: Thick, sugared and bloated with sweetness. Dark chocolate, vanilla, buttercream, and hops with pralines, hazelnut, toffee and caramel. Not primarily chocolate on me at all, mostly nutty/creamy.
The Great Sword Of War: Mandarin, tonka, saffron, black tea, cocoa, tobacco leaf, sanguine red musk and five classical herbs of conflict. Mainly herby on my skin. Didn't like it.
Intrigue: Black palm, with cocoa, fig and shadowy wooded notes. I like this one a lot; it smells mainly like a cocoa/fig scent on me.
Kali: This perfume is a blend of the sacred blooms of cassia, hibiscus, musk rose, Himalayan wild tulip, lotus and osmanthus swirled with offertory dark chocolate, red wine, tobacco, balsam and honey. I like this one okay, but it's not primarily chocolate on me. Mostly honey and wine.
Tezcatlipoca: Deep cocoa laced with patchouli, leather armor, ritual incense, and a touch of Xochiquetzal's flowers. I like this one a lot. I used to have a bottle and I gave it to someone who was looking for it. I miss that bottle and often wish I still had it.
Vice: A deep chocolate scent, with black cherry and orange blossom. The chocolate just didn't work that well on me. Smelled like tootsie rolls.
Velvet: gentle sandalwood warmed by cocoa vanilla and a veil of deep myrrh. I like this one a lot. A lot of sandalwood and myrrh with just a little bit of cocoa.
Favorite GCs are Intrigue, Tezcatlipoca, and Velvet. (Not a surprise that they all contain cocoa and not chocolate.) The cocoa is prominent in all of them, but it's hard to choose a favorite because they all smell so different. I think my favorite is Velvet, though.
LEs THAT CONTAIN CHOCOLATE/COCOA
Boomslang: Snake Oil with cocoa, teakwood, and rice milk. Ahhhh, I love this one. Have 2 bottles.
The Candy Butcher: Dark chocolate with a heavy cream undertone. Didn't work on me at all.
Enraged Groundhog Musk: Cranky groundhog musk sweetened up by chocolate-covered black cherries, cardamom, French vanilla, and caramel. The cardamom amped too much in this for me, to my disappointment.
Freak Show: fig, pomegranate and cocoa bean with lemon, bergamot, vanilla, mellow honey musk, calamus and tonka. I really like this, but the cocoa bean isn't prominent. This one is similar to Intrigue and Carnal from the GC. I have a bottle of this.
Monster Bait: Underbed: Cassia-caked cocoa coconut over angel food cake. The cassia is really really strong in this. I have a bottle of this... not sure why though. I never wear it.
The Pumpkin Patch #2: Pumpkin with cocoa, hazelnut and walnut. Largely pumpkin with just a little cocoa.
Spooky (Yule 2003 & 2005) A maddeningly festive blend of warm, buttery rum, cocoa, coconut, vanilla and a jolt of peppermint. Mostly minty on me, not too cocoa-ish.
The Tell-tale Heart: blood musk, cocoa, black pepper, allspice, dragon's blood resin and vetiver. This is a fantastic scent but seems like mainly spicy dragon's blood on me. I have a couple of bottles of this.
Thirteen (4/13/07): A base of cocoa absolute and white chocolate with thirteen baneful and beneficial bits: cardamom, fig meat, grains of paradise, rice flower, chamomile, sandalwood, catnip, clove, and a bundle of five blessed blossoms and herbs. This is the purple label one. Too herby for me.
Thirteen (10/13/06): Cocoa and vanilla beans, Mysore sandalwood, star fruit, orange rind, red amber, fig leaf, mimosa, rooibos tea, bourbon geranium, rose otto, nutmeg, and lavender. My favorite of the 13s so far. I have one bottle of this.
Thirteen (5/13/05 & 1/13/06): thirteen lucky and unlucky components, including white chocolate, tangerine, currant, mandarin, white tea and iris. I like this one (the white label one) but I liked Oct 06 (the orange label) better.
Treat #2: A fine confection for discriminating trick or treaters: a fig meat, coconut, anduttercreamonbon rolled in orange rind, mint leaf, cardamom, clove and ginger, dipped in milk chocolate. Not primarily chocolate on me at all, more like Fruit Loops.
Wulric, The Wolfman: cocoa absolute, French vanilla, birch tar, lavender, bourbon vetiver, wild musk, clary sage, and cistus. This smelled a little weird and not harmonic on me.
Of those, the Oct 06 (orange label) is my favorite of the 13s, but Boomslang is clearly my favorite. I'm so glad that has cocoa in it and not chocolate. I would say that Boomslang is mostly Snake Oil rather than mostly cocoa, but Velvet is my favorite GC and that one's more myrrh & sandalwood than cocoa. Between Velvet and Boomslang I prefer Boomslang, but I'd love to have a bottle of Velvet too. They're really different. (Of all of these, I'd like to have bottles of Boomslang, Velvet, Tezcatlipoca, and 13 orange label.)
Verdict on Favorite Cocoa/Chocolate Scent: Boomslang
Hunh. I didn't know they could do that. I mean, I guess somewhere in the back of my head it must have registered that maintainers can shut down comms, but I was totally surprised by the announcement. To be honest I didn't know that Beth started alchemylab, I figured that some people started it with her blessing and she jumped in from time to time to make comments or suggestions.
It seems a drastic step, which makes me wonder how bad it's gotten for Beth and the Lab. I seriously bet there are times when she just wants to scream at everyone for being such nitpicky demanding dumbasses. (I just hope she's never wanted to scream at me for being said dumbass.)
Personally, I think that shutting it down is a great idea. Hell, if I ran a business and maintained a comm associated with my business, and the comm was full of people jacking up the prices on my products and selling them to make profits, and talking trash about my business and each other, I'd want to shut it down too.
I know that some people are upset because they feel like they'll lose touch with some folks they had gotten to know, but for the most part I think those of us who like to talk to each other are over here on the forums anyway. Hopefully the people who like the "community" aspect of alchemylab will come on over.
[see previous entries for what I'm doing here.]
Mint is often a deal-breaker note for me. I almost always do not go for the cool/chilly scents, and mint smells cool to me. In the worst situations it reminds me of toothpaste, and in the best situations it makes me think of dinner mints. Neither of those are things I'd consider favorite perfume scents. I do like some mint-scented soaps, so it's not that I dislike the scent of mint. It's just that as a personal fragrance it doesn't suit me.
GCs THAT CONTAIN MINT
Absinthe: Wormwood essence, light mints, cardamom, anise, hyssop, and lemon. Not primarily minty, mostly wormwood essence.
Bess: rosemary, orange flower, grape spirit, five rose variants, lemon peel, and mint. This doesn't seem primarily minty to me because rosemary is always so strong on me.
Calliope: lavender and bright mint with bergamot, verbena, thyme and a touch of sweet orange and warm almond. This is an herbal citrus scent on me and not very minty.
Cathode: Ambergris, Spanish Moss, oakmoss, and mints. This one is minty, but I'm not a fan of the moss/mint combination. My notes for this scent said it reminded me of one of my dog's mint-flavored treats. Ew. Not a great association. No wonder I didn't like this scent.
Cloister Graveyard In The Snow: Three white musks, ozone, frankincense, mint. This one was a surprise hit with me because I did not expect to like it. My notes said that the mint was the most captivating of the notes in the scent -- that is unheard of, with me.
Death On A Pale Horse: empty white musk and mint seeped with solemn lavender, doleful patchouli and vetiver, scythe-sharp yuzu and lime, with geranium bourbon, white sandalwood and calla lily. I really didn't like this scent at all due to the yuzu. I don't think it was mostly minty, anyway.
Dracul: Black musk, tobacco, fir, balsam of peru, cumin, bitter clove, crushed mint, and orange blossom. My husband has a bottle of this and wears it from time to time. I like it, but it's not primarily minty.
Envy: Green herbs slithering through mint, lime and lavender. Mostly herbal, not minty.
House Of Night: [see description for what may be in it -- one thing mentioned was mint.] "A sorrowful graveyard bouquet of somber blooms, funereal boughs, dismal green and laden with grief." A sweet floral. Not minty.
Juke Joint: Kentucky Bourbon, sugar and a sprig of mint. I can smell the mint in this, and I like the scent. Very evocative.
The Lantern Ghost Of Oiwa: Black tea, cherry blossom, ho wood, calla lily, rice wine, and white mint. The mint in this is soft and smells fresh and clean. I like this one, but I can barely smell it on my skin.
Manhattan: sheer amber, black leather, white mint, lemon peel, white tea, grapefruit, kush, teakwood and orchid. I love this scent -- it won my Favorite Grapefruit scent. Not really minty, though.
Melpomene: dark cypress with mint, geranium, Bulgar lavender, orange blossom and passion flower. I didn't really smell mint in this, but it smelled kind of medicinal to me and I didn't like it.
The Mock Turtle's Lessons: blurry aquatic notes, with a confusing, contrary splort of iris, ambrette, green apple, vodka, white mint and a squish of lime. This is a good blend of mint and lime, and I do like it. My only complaint with it is that it disappears really fast on me.
Shattered: A blend of white champagne notes, grapefruit, lotus, slivered mint and crystalline aquatic blooms. This smells like mint-menthol on me and was totally not the kind of scent I like.
Silence: White sandalwood, iris, blue musk, lotus root, moonflower, plum blossom, green tea, white mint and white peach. This perfume is gorgeous, and I love it. However, not primarily minty. It's one of the peach contenders.
Ultraviolet: Lush violet and neroli spiked hard with eucalyptus and a sliver of mint. The eucalyptus in this one is very, very strong at first. I mean, like knock-you-over strong. That's what keeps it out of the running for my favorite anything. I do like the violet/mint combination I get when it's dry, but I really dislike the initial eucalyptus blast.
Undertow: lotus and juniper with a hint of mint. Minty when wet, but sweet when dry. My notes said that when it was dry it reminded me of Pez. I have no idea why.
Utrennyaya: Osmanthus, Damascus rose, violet, delphinium, white mint, palmarosa and white sandalwood. This smelled minty AND powdery on me. Not a good combination.
Vicomte de Valmont: ambergris, white musk, white sandalwood, Spanish Moss, orange blossom, three mints, jasmine, rose geranium and a spike of rosemary. This one is a little too minty for me personally, but it smells great on my husband and I like it when he wears this.
The ones that didn't have mint listed in the notes but smelled a bit minty to me were Hamadryad (possibly due to wintergreen smelling minty to me), possibly Yggdrasil, maybe Nocnitsa, maybe Szepasszony, possibly Jezirat al Tennyn. I thought Tarot The Fool and Strength smelled a bit minty as well (but again, that could be due to wintergreen), and Grr is very definitely peppermint-scented (but I don't use that as perfume, of course).
So of all the ones listed above, the primarily minty ones I like are Cloister Graveyard in the Snow, Juke Joint, The Mock Turtle's Lessons, and Vicomte de Valmont. I think my favorite out of all those is Vicomte, but I don't wear that, my husband does. So I'll have to pick something else. I think Cloister Graveyard in the Snow wins.
LEs THAT CONTAIN MINT
Frost Moon: "traditional lunar oils frozen with winter mints, shivering eucalyptus, clear lotus, a gust of wind, and a midnight aquatic note." This smells much too cold for me to like it.
F5: Aloe, white musk, lime peel, fresh mint, seaspray, verbena and green tea. I did like this one, surprisingly. It smells fresh and clean. It was really nice on hot days. Not really minty, though, mostly aloe, tea, and musk.
Gennivre, L'artiste Du Diable: Hyson tea leaf, pale mint, sugar cane, orange blossom, lemongrass, and honey. I like this one as well. On me it smells like a tea scent with a mild mint. Very pretty.
Green Tree Viper: Snake Oil with four mints, bergamot, and green tea. I tried this but didn't write a review, and I'm trying to remember what I thought of it. I think that I didn't care for the Snake Oil + mint combination.
Lick It: a candy cane perfume, minty, sweet and sugared. Smells exactly like a candy cane. Peppermint isn't my favorite mint, though.
Lick It Again: "a peppermint candy cane with an extra jolt of sugar." This one also smells like a candy cane, but a bit smoother than Lick It. Like I said, though, not really into peppermint.
Monster Bait: Tokyo Stomp: vanilla mint. Crisp and refreshing, but smooth as well. I was surprised and delighted that I liked this scent. It's probably the only mint scent I actually wear.
Nuclear Winter: The ice, desolation and barrenness of nuclear devastation shot through by a beam of radioactive mints. I liked this one. Didn't think I would, but I did. Very much a chilly scent.
Snowblind: the perfect vanilla mint. I tried this a long time ago and gave it the boot due to being minty. I don't think I even wrote a review, I just passed it along. If I recall correctly, it did smell like dinner mints and I thought it wasn't that bad. I wish I'd kept a little bit of it so I could do a side-by-side comparison with Tokyo Stomp, but I don't have any Snowblind and I doubt I'll ever get any again.
Spooky: buttery rum, cocoa, coconut, vanilla and peppermint. I like this scent. I haven't written a review for it yet, so I couldn't tell you what I like about it, I just know I like it.
Taurus 07: Rose, daisy, apple blossom, violet, poppy, columbine, thyme, and mint. Sweet spring floral. Not minty.
Treat #2: fig meat, coconut, "buttercream bonbon," orange rind, mint leaf, cardamom, clove, ginger, and milk chocolate. Smells very Fruit-Loopy on me. Not minty.
Tulzcha: "A crystalline, cold green flame: six mints with white pepper and cucumber." Mint+cucumber. This is a cool, refreshing scent, and I do like it. I just never wear it. It's one of those scents I appreciate because it smells good but it doesn't really suit me.
Usher: light musk, fougere, white mint, mandarin, tea leaf, blackcurrant, "brushed by the scent of the tarn that surrounds the House, and the gloom and decay of the walls that hold him." I gave a bottle of this to my husband and he wore it maybe once or twice. I remember liking it when he wore it, but I don't think he liked it. I can't remember if it was primarily minty, but I doubt it.
The one that didn't have mint listed in the notes but smelled minty to me was Snow-Flakes. I really like that one, but because I don't know for sure that it has mint in it, I can't include it.
So, of those ones, the ones I like are F5, Gennivre, Tokyo Stomp, Nuclear Winter, and Spooky. (Possibly Snowblind, but I wouldn't name one that rare as a favorite anyway because in order to be a favorite it has to be obtainable.) Out of those, my hands-down favorite is Tokyo Stomp.
Verdict on Favorite Mint Scent: Monster Bait Tokyo Stomp.
[see previous entries for what I'm doing.]
I've lumped these all together because they smell sort of similar on me. I generally dislike dirt and earth notes because they amp so much on me, and often I don't like moss or oakmoss either. Sometimes, though, I find a moss/oakmoss blend that really works on me.
GCs THAT CONTAIN DIRT/EARTH/MOSS/OAKMOSS
Arkham: maple, birch, dogwood, cypress and pine softened by a garland of New England wildflowers: bergamot, columbine, rue anemone, blue violet, creeping phlox, bloodroot, toadflax, and pixie moss.
Bayou: Spanish moss, evergreen and cypress with watery blue-green notes and an eddy of hothouse flowers and swamp blooms.
Burial: The Dark Side of Earth: deep, brooding forest scents, including juniper and patchouli. The scent of upturned cemetary loam mingling with floral offerings to the dead.
Cathode: Ambergris, Spanish Moss, oakmoss and three electric mints.
Crossroads: A chill twilit garden of blooms over dry earth and mosses, heavily laden with incense and offertory herbs.
Danse Macabre: Black cypress with oakmoss, frankincense, oude, and a sliver of toasted hazelnut.
Death of the Gravedigger: Snow, soil, opoponax and myrrh.
Destroying Angel: Papery white notes evoke the grace of this fungi, grounded by thin, crisp soil.
Fae: white musk, bergamot, heliotrope, peach and oakmoss.
Greed: patchouli, heliotrope, copal and oakmoss.
Horreur Sympathique: blood musk, golden honey, thick black wine, champagne grapes, tobacco flower, plum blossom, tonka bean, oakmoss, carnation, benzoin, opoponax, and sugar cane.
I Died For Beauty: The Venusian splendor of ylang ylang and violet stirred by hyssop, frankincense, and grave loam. [grave loam, in this case, is oakmoss and Spanish Moss]
Jazz Funeral: Bittersweet bay rum and a host of funeral flowers with a touch of graveyard dirt, magnolia and Spanish Moss.
Jezirat al Tennyn: smoke and fire, earth and wind.
Kiyohime Changes From A Serpent: Salty ocean spray, red kelp, black plum, lychee, sea moss, green musk, hachiya, plum blossom, and matcha.
Les Anges Déchus: Khus, blonde tobacco, life everlasting, orris root, black currant, cabreuva, Spanish moss, leather, and ambrette.
Les Infortunes de la Vertu: A pain-tinged, pleasure-soaked blend of leather, oakmoss, orange blossom, amber, and rose with A breath of virginal French florals and a hint of austere monastic penitential incense.
Lyonesse: Golden vanilla and gilded musk, stargazer lily, white sandalwood, grey amber, elemi, orris root, ambergris and sea moss.
Mad Meg: Fire-scorched earth, black mandarin, cinnamon bark, bitter almond, sage, vetiver, and balsam of peru.
Nephilim: Holy frankincense and hyssop in union with earthy fig, defiled by black patchouli and vetiver, with a chaotic infusion of lavender, cardamom, tamarind, rosemary, oakmoss and cypress.
Nocnitsa: Her scent is that of a lightless fir wood, nighttime air, wet forest mosses and upturned earth.
Nosferatu: desiccated herbs and gritty earth brought to life with a swell of robust and sanguineous red wines.
Nuit: Her perfume is starry and crystalline, a jewel-clad and glittering paean to night: dazzling white musks, white rose and night-blooming jasmine with the soft moss of moonlit meadows, a waft of Egyptian incense, and a gentle breath of moonflower.
Omen: oakmoss, juniper berry, myrrh and patchouli.
Penny Dreadful: Soft perfume evocative of noir heroines over rich red grave loam.
Phantom Queen: Black orchid, apple blossom, meadowsweet, and rue over Irish moss, hawthorn and red clover.
Robin Goodfellow: Dark musk, moss-covered wood, ragwort, heather, and sage.
Salomé: almond with star jasmine, oakmoss, red sandalwood and Egyptian musk.
Sunflower: Sunflower bouquet, black amber, creeping black moss, wilted greenery, and scorched, dry stems.
Thanatos: Dry white sandalwood and soft Siamese benzoin over a lugubrious blend of myrrh, Moroccan rose, mastic, tomb moss and a thin whiff of Greek incense.
Two Monsters: Oakmoss, vetiver, black musk, champaca flower, leather, patchouli, ginger, Japanese pittosporum, ambergris and white pepper.
Urania: Moonflower, Moroccan jasmine, benzoin, white musk, iris, moss and a flash of ozone.
Vicomte de Valmont: ambergris, white musk, white sandalwood, Spanish Moss, orange blossom, three mints, jasmine, rose geranium and a spike of rosemary.
Viola: Gentle tea rose, lilac, Calla Lily, and Somalian Rose layered over golden Peruvian amber, Spanish moss, red sandalwood, rosewood, and myrrh, with the lightest touch of Mandarin.
Wilde: A sophisticated traditional gentleman's cologne, with just the slightest taint of patchouli's passion, tonka bean's decadence, the philanthropy of bergamot, moss' cynicism, the sharp wit of lavender, and the hopeless romantic longing of jasmine and thyme.
Zombi: Dried roses, rose leaf, Spanish moss, oakmoss and deep brown earth.
Of those ones, the ones that seem to be primarily dirt/earth/moss scents are Bayou, Burial, Cathode, Crossroads, Jazz Funeral, Jezirat al Tennyn, Nocnitsa, Nosferatu, Penny Dreadful, Robin Goodfellow, and Zombi. Of those, I like Bayou, Jazz Funeral, Nocnitsa, and Robin Goodfellow. My favorite is Robin Goodfellow.
By the way, although it isn't mentioned in the notes, Ulalume smells like it has a little bit of dirt/earth in it too, and I like that one as well. Death Cap and Masabakes smell like they have some dirt/earth in them as well, and I don't like either of those at all.
LEs THAT CONTAIN DIRT/EARTH/MOSS/OAKMOSS
Annabel Lee: wild peony, sweet pea, cucumber and white sage with sea lilies and moss.
Bad Luck Woman Blues: Spanish moss, black pepper, mullein, sweet sage, vandal root, cypress, cigar tobacco, and a puff of goofer dust cloaked by a swarthy cologne of vetiver, lime, dark musk, caramel accord, and lilac.
Banded Sea Snake: Snake Oil with oakmoss, sea moss, and olive leaf.
The Castle: A distant whisper of pine, wet moss and dry leaves passing through vast halls and winding dungeons whose scent bears the memory of blood, faded splendor, imperial elegance and stunning violence.
Fée: Auoyant, dulcetlend of vanilla, sunflower, carnation, honeydew, peachlossom, lychee, oakmoss and white tea.
Faiza The Black Mamba: black amber, caraway, oakmoss, green sandalwood, bergamot, jasmine sambac, gardenia, orange pulp, vanilla, blackberry, black musk, white honey, ti leaf, and ginger.
Gnome: No notes listed, but when I tried it, it clearly had dirt/earth in it.
Graveyard Dirt: This is the scent of pure graveyard dust, spattered with grave loam and dusted lightly with tombstone moss.
Hunger Moon: Ozone, white sandalwood, crystallized white amber, verbena, oakmoss, clary sage, and a hint of white citrus rind.
Jólasveinar: Their scent is a mishmash of snow, dirt, Icelandic moss, marsh felwort, and the smushed petals of buttercups and moorland spotted orchids, with the barest hint of the scent of pilfered Christmas pastries.
King of Clubs: deeper, darker [than Queen of Clubs] earth notes with dark musk, tobacco leaf, oakmoss, amber, leather, sage and vetiver with fig and bitter almond.
Luperci: Raw, down and dirty patchouli, Gurjam balsam, and essence of Sampson Root sweetened with the heightened sexuality of beeswax, virile juniper, oakmoss, ambrette seed over honey and East African musk.
Oborot: Balkan fir sap, dark mosses, Greek Mountain tea flower, black pine, salty ocean spray, deep black earth, and a moon-touched magickal incense of sandarac, frankincense, and ravensara.
The Premature Burial: Oppressive darkness, expressed through black orchid and patchouli, smothered by wet soil, a coffin’s teakwood, and the funereal gloom of cypress.
Privilege: Armoise, tuberose, white citrus, rose absolute, oakmoss, tiare, tuberose, vanilla, linden, and lemon tree blossom.
Queen of Clubs: Soft, deep earth notes with myrrh, amber, pomegranate, dark incense, red currant, rose and vanilla.
R M Renfield: moss, cumin, patchouli, Balsam of Peru, and neroli.
Roux-ga-roux: Spanish moss, swamp jessamine, bog water, cypress, hickory wood, lobelia, sweet flag, wisteria, and marsh milkweed.
Samhainophobia: Menacing Haitian vetiver, patchouli, and clove with a shock of bourbon geranium, grim oakmoss, and dread-inspiring balsams pierce the innocuous scent of autumn leaves.
The Sleeper: Night-blooming jasmine, opium poppy, wild rosemary, Calla lily, oakmoss and crypt musk.
Swadhisthana: Vanilla, nutmeg, orris root, gardenia, damiana, jasmine, patchouli, ylang, tangerine, bergamot, sandalwood, oakmoss.
Vipralabda: benzoin, Greek sage, hay, melaleuca ericifolia, oakmoss, and blue chamomile.
Whipporwill: Spanish moss, cedar, black pepper, oakmoss, juniper, bamboo reeds and cardamom.
The Wild Men of Jezirat Al Tennyn: red amber, Spanish moss, Indonesian patchouli, ambergris, red pepper, two cloves, and vanilla flower.
Of those ones, the ones that seem to be primarily dirt/earth/moss scents are Bad Luck Woman Blues, Graveyard Dirt, King of Clubs, Oborot, The Premature Burial, Queen of Clubs, R M Renfield, Roux-ga-Roux, and Whippoorwill. Of those, I like the last three in that list a lot. I'd have a hard time choosing a favorite among those three actually, but if I had to, I'd pick R M Renfield.
Verdict on Favorite Dirt/Earth/Moss/Oakmoss Scent: R M Renfield.
Argh, it's been a crappy week. Sort of. Mostly due to this damn cold. I hate being sick. It makes me mad to be sick. I don't know how to stop getting angry about it, but I wish I could. I think that if I spent my mental energy concentrating on getting better rather than perpetuating my foul mood I might recover more quickly. I am the whiniest, rottenest, most annoying sick person you've ever met.
But! At least it's starting to go away. Probably by next week I'll be fine. And next week is more important than this week because next week it's my birthday.
Ye gods, 35 years old. Holy crap. Wasn't it just a few weeks ago that I was 25? It sure seems like it. I remember once when I was little complaining to my dad that time goes so slow (when you're little the time just drags on and on until the fun things happen), and he got this funny smile on his face and said something like, "When you get older, it'll go by a lot faster." As usual, Daddy was right.
One of the things that bugs me about being this old is that I have just started to realize that I can say things like, "Yeah, but that happened 20 years ago" to my friends from high school. Twenty years ago. TWENTY. I'm starting to remember 30 years ago with increasing clarity. I don't feel old when I look in the mirror, or even when I overhear teenagers talking and their inane conversations drive me up the wall. I always thought that would make me feel old, when I realized that I didn't have anything in common with teenagers any more. But nope, that's not it. It's that I used to feel like I had so much of life ahead of me. Now there's a huge swath BEHIND me, 35 years' worth... that's what gets to me.
Don't get me wrong, looking back doesn't make me feel like I regret anything. I might not have the life I imagined I'd have, but it's pretty damn good. In fact as I've gotten older I've taken care of myself better -- I actually look better now than when I was 28. I'm definitely more financially comfortable. And I'd like to think I'm wiser, too. All in all not too shabby.
Anyhoo, enough of that. Mostly I wanted to write about my week, so I don't know how I ended up with that birthday-related nostalgia.
This week, I submitted two more Trick or Treat pleas. I was really hoping to be able to do four, and hopefully (maybe) get all the different ones, or at least have something to swap for any I didn't get. But it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to afford one more submission before the deadline. Alas! I keep telling myself I have too much perfume oil as it is -- I need to do a serious reduction of my collection. But I've been at this BPAL thing for 8 months now, and the oils are still coming in at a much faster rate than they're going out. The good news is that I haven't been buying from eBay in quite a while; mostly I'm just ordering from the Lab. The bad news is that the reason I don't want to buy any of the older scents is because I've already tried nearly all of them.
And now I'm tired and I'm going to bed. Good night!
I'm making a list here of my favorites from the GC, mainly just for my reference.
The ones I don't have bottles of yet have an asterisk. The ones that are next on my list to get are purple.
Bewitching Brews
Jack
Scherezade
Sin & Salvation
Anathema
Dorian
Love Potions
Bathsheba
Bordello
Perversion
Snake Oil - AGED
Vixen
Diabolus
Fenris Wolf
*Kitsune-Tsuki
Marquise de Merteuil
Mad Tea Party
Eat Me
Frumious Bandersnatch
Mouse's Long and Sad Tale
The Unicorn
Illyria
Tamora
*Titania
Wanderlust
Tintagel
Tombstone - AGED
Ars Draconis
Dragon's Milk
Dragon's Musk
Rappaccini's Garden
Cobra Lily
The Salon
Silence
Two Monsters
Three Gorgons
A Picnic in Arkham
Miskatonic University
Excolo
Loviatar
Ogun
Osun
Santa Muerte
Shango
Sephiroth
Chokmah
And these ones are the ones I like a lot, but they're a step down from the "love" category. I wear them often.
Bewitching Brews
*Blood Kiss
*Intrigue
*Lampades
*Omen
*Sudha Segara
*Velvet
*Voodoo
Wilde
Funereal Oils
*Midnight
*Nocturne
*Thanatopsis
Sin & Salvation
The Bow & Crown of Conquest
*Fallen
*Hellfire
Lust
*Oblivion
Sin
Love Potions
*Carnal
Loralei
Salome
*Spellbound
Vicomte de Valmont
Diabolus
Dracul
*Hell's Belle
*Hellcat
Villain
Mad Tea Party
Cheshire Cat
*White Rabbit
Illyria
*Lady Macbeth
Wanderlust
*Hollywood Babylon
Manhattan
Morocco
*Lyonesse
*Pontarlier
*Prague
Ars Draconis
*Dragon's Heart
*Dragon's Reverie
Rappaccini's Garden
*Black Hellebore
*Love-Lies-Bleeding
*Moon Rose
*Strangler Fig
The Salon
*Three Brides
*The Ecstasy of St. Teresa
*Judith Victorious
*Les Anges Déchus
*The Sailor's Den
A Picnic in Arkham
Al-Azif
*The Music of Erich Zahn
Excolo
*Grandmother of Ghosts
*Kali
*Mania
*Oya
*Queen Mab
*Tezcatlipoca
*Xiuhtecuhtli
*Aglaea
Vechernyaya
Voodoo Blends
French Love
*Love Me
*Wolf's Heart
The Chakras
Swadhisthana
Carnaval Diabolique: Although I don't know what lemon flower is (is that like verbena?), the rest of this sounds marvelous. Heliotrope and tuberose are two of my favorite floral notes, and two of the few I can actually wear. Can't wait to see how they'll combine with the black musk and opium smoke in this.
Midnight on Midway: I probably should have gotten a bottle of this but I didn't. I saw "flowers" and moved on. But often night-blooming flowers are good for me -- I really like the GC Midnight. And sugared incense sounds great. I waffled and then didn't get it. But this is one of the first ones I'd like to try after my current order comes in.
The Phantom Calliope: The cassis (is that the same thing as cassia?) and cardamom scared me off of this one. I'm afraid it might be too spicy for me.
The Candy Butcher: Yes, please! Chocolate and cream sounds great!
Mme Moriarty, Misfortune Teller: Red musk is my favorite musk, plum is my favorite fruit, and I love vanilla and patchouli. (I'm not sure what patchouli leaf is, though.) I fully expect to love this oil.
The Organ Grinder: I debated about this one and then passed on it. The tobacco smoke and black patchouli sounded excellent, but sasparilla and white pine bark and normally not so great for me. I'll have to wait for reviews.
Pulcinella & Teresina: Cedar, teak, and rose are three notes that normally don't work on me, so I didn't get this one.
Melisande, The Puppet Mistress: The mention of jasmine and violet scared me off (although I don't know what sambac is, and I'm also not sure how violet water is different from violet). Jasmine is a heady cloying floral on me -- the kind of floral I don't like. And although I like the scent of violet, every BPAL blend that contains violet winds up smelling virtually identical on me because my skin amps the violet note so strongly.
Doc Constantine: I wavered about this one too, but I decided to pick just one of the ones I was iffy about and take a chance. This was the one I gambled on. The cedar smoke and fir needle sounded iffy, but the rest sounds fantastic. So I'm hopeful.
Xanthe, the Weeping Clown: I got a very discordant strange feel from Tweedledee, which also has white pepper and an exotic fruit. I didn't think it was all that pleasant, so I passed on Xanthe. I'll be interested to read reviews of it through.
Gennivre, l'Artiste du Diable: This blend has too many notes that don't work on me. Mint and lemongrass are very rarely good on my skin, and honey is often questionable. So I didn't get this one.
Theodosius, the Legerdemain: This is the one I should have gotten but didn't. Rats. I saw "jasmine" in there and immediately moved on, and then for some reason I didn't come back to this one and read it again. Well, I'll get a bottle with the lunacy update. It sounds like possibly something between Dorian and Wilde, and I think it would be an excellent birthday gift for my hubby.
Antonino, The Carny Talker: Another must-have. The verbena and lavender might have killed it on my skin, but this one will be a gift for my husband and lavender smells good on him. Plum, vetiver, and fig are three of my favorite notes, and I'm hoping this one will be a little reminiscent of King of Spades...
I had just decided to put away my laptop and go to bed when the announcement email popped up in my InBox. I didn't even know there was a chance it might go live tonight, so it was a big surprise. But YAY, I didn't miss the update!
Here are my thoughts (apart from the general about Neil Gaiman scents!):
THE CAROUSEL: AMERICAN GODS
BILQUIS: Honey, myrrh, lily of the valley, rose otto, fig leaf, almond, ambrette, red apple, and warm musk.
I will love to try a decant of this because I like a lot of those notes. I had to be picky about which bottles I got, though, due to a rather small PayPal balance, so I decided against ordering a bottle of this. The honey, ambrette, and red apple are possible no-nos on me.
MAD SWEENEY: Barrel-aged whiskey and oak.
Not sure on this one... I like oak but whiskey is iffy.
MAMA-JI: Spices, cardamom, nutmeg, and flowers.
I don't think that one's going to work on me either. I usually stay away from spices.
MR. IBIS: Papyrus, vanilla flower, Egyptian musk, African musk, aloe ferox, white sandalwood.
I have to try this one as soon as possible. I really like all those notes. I ordered a bottle.
MR. JACQUEL: Golden amber, hyssop, North African patchouli, and embalming spices.
This could be really great -- when I was reading the description I accidentally read "embalming spices" as "embalming herbs" and remembered that the herbs haven't worked on me. I didn't order a bottle because of that, and now that I realize I mis-read the description I wish I would have tried a bottle.
THE CAROUSEL: ANANSI BOYS
MR. NANCY: Sugar cookies with bay rum, tobacco, and lime.
I love sugar cookies and I like those additional notes! This was the first one I saw that I didn't even have to consider -- I knew instantly that it would be in my order.
SPIDER: White ginger, artemesia, vetiver, nutmeg, King mandarin, bergamot, and lime.
This one threw me for a total loop. I have no idea what that will smell like. I'll be on the lookout for decants for sale as soon as people start getting their bottles.
LIMITED EDITION: LUNACIES
CROW MOON: This is the final Full Moon of winter. The call of the crow signals the end of the frost, and their scent, of vervain, black violet, white musk, and Chinese cedar, is brushed by the last cold wind of winter on their wings, and the scent of evergreen boughs touched by the season’s final flowers and the first blossoms of spring: wintersweet, green-barked dogwood, primrose, snowdrop, and lenten rose hellebore bouquet.
I got this because I get all the lunacies, but I am almost positive that the "cold wind of winter" aspect is going to mess up the scent for me. It always does.
OBOROT
Balkan fir sap, dark mosses, Greek Mountain tea flower, black pine, salty ocean spray, deep black earth, and a moon-touched magickal incense of sandarac, frankincense, and ravensara.
I got this one too for the same reason, but fir, pine, moss, and earth are all bad on me. I don't expect I'm going to like it, but I'm willing to give it a shot.
LIMITED EDITION
FIRE PIG
A new year’s blessing! Peony, China’s national flower, with bamboo for flexibility, plum blossom for perseverance, courage, and hope, tangerine for wealth, orange for happiness, lychee for household peace, pine resin for constancy, golden kumquat, pussy willow, and quince for prosperity, narcissus and King mandarin for good fortune, and peach blossom for longevity, with a splash of blazing red of dragon’s blood… to help you scare away the rampaging Nian.
Well, I did like Peony Moon, except that I thought it didn't seem to be too terribly complex -- this one sounds a lot more interesting. I'm not sure about it though, and since it'll be up for a while I figured I could take some time deciding on it.
In a couple of days it will have been one year since my dad died. This whole Father's Day thing is just going to be terrible for me forever... my dad died on June 17, his birthday was June 22, and Father's Day is always right around those days. Three whammies all at once.
Last year I brought the Father's Day card I got for him to his funeral. I had bought it before my husband and I went on a cruise to Alaska -- we arrived home on Sunday night to find out that he had died on Friday morning. The next morning we drove to Ohio for the funeral. I took the card and read it to my dad when I saw him. I wanted to put it in the casket with him but my husband didn't think I should. So now it's in the back of a picture frame, the one that holds my favorite photo of my dad from when he was about 22.
My mom is getting ready to retire and move into her parents' farmhouse -- Grandma passed away in February, and my mom is buying their property and is going to live there. So a few weekends ago my sisters and I were all going through all our old toys and stuff from school, boxing things up to take to our own houses, and my mom gave me some of my dad's and my grandparents' things. I have an apron my grandmother made, an ashtray my dad made and a bunch of his college books, my grandfather's locksmithing certificate, and a few of my other grandmother's ceramic turtles from her turtle collection. I used to have four grandparents and a father, and now all I have is a few of their things.
For the past couple of weeks I've been such a mess. No sleep, and bawling all the time. I can hardly stand to read the Confessional thread these days because whenever someone complains about their parents I just sit here and cry. And think about how much I would give to hear my dad's voice again. Yelling at me or anything, I don't care. Just to hear his voice.
After reading through the LJ Wank-Garbage thread, I noticed that some people have mentioned (again) that if people didn't buy high-priced decants/bottles, no one would have them on their sales lists. And I feel guilty because I buy those high-priced things. I guess I'm a big fat jerk for driving up the prices for everyone else. But I've only been around for a few months, and some really good stuff was discontinued before I'd ever even heard of BPAL. It's not like I could buy it from the Lab right now.
I feel like it's okay to be different in the BPAL community -- goth or not, bi or not, pagan or not, whatever -- but it's not okay to have money. If you spend a lot of money on an imp of Pumpkin King, people bash you all over the place for being stupid and/or insane. And evidently it's not cool to have a big BPAL stash because then you're an obsessed fangirl who has no life.
I will come clean: I've spent several thousand dollars on perfume oils in the past three months or so. I'm not stupid, insane, or obsessed -- just... well, wealthy. $20 is not a lot of money to me. At all. And I feel like I'm being a bitch just for saying the truth. It's not a flaw, and I don't know why I'm ebarrassed about it. In my groups of friends in real life, having a comfortable home and money in the bank is the mark of hard work and success. It seems like in the BPAL community it's just a reason for people not to like you.
I love my BPAL collection, I like to talk about BPAL, I like to swap with people, and there are some exceptional people in the BPAL community. But I don't feel like there's a whole lot of love for people like me. If anyone said anything negative about someone's religion 20 people would jump to her defense. But when people say someone's an idiot for spending $50 on an imp of Storyville, crickets chirp off in the distance. Followed by a post of "Yeah, that's ridiculous!"
I have been visiting my sister for the past five days, and in her house they go to bed at 9 p.m. on work nights -- I go to bed around 4 a.m. and sleep until noon. So since I had a bunch of free time where I was sitting around my sister's house by myself with none of the usual distractions at my own home, I decided to be productive. I tried to consolidate my BPAL reviews into one location.
And HERE is the humongous result. It took me roughly 20 hours, and it's still pretty crappy and incomplete. Man, there are a lot of different BPAL oils.
More Than This, by The Cure
For a second of your life
Tell me that it's true
Waiting for a sign
It's all I want of you
Your heart hides a secret
A promise of what is
Of something more than this
Just a second of your time
Any one will do
A taste of any other
Is all I want from you
Offer me the world
And how can I resist
Something more than this?
Make-believe in magic
Make-believe in dreams
Make-believe -- Impossible
Nothing as it seems
See, touch, taste, smell, hear
But never know if it's real (But never know if it's real)
For a second of your life
Tell me if it's true
Anywhere we are
Is all I want of you
On your lips lies a secret
A promise of a kiss
Of something more than this
Just a second of your time
Any one will do
To know from any other
Is all I want from you
You've given me the world
You know I can't resist
Something more than this
Make-believe in magic
Make-believe in dreams
Make-believe -- Impossible
Nothing as it seems
Never really understand
What anything means (What anything means)
Another second of my life
Not knowing if it's true
Make-believe in nothing
Is all I want of you
Whispering the secret
Whispering there is
Always something other
Something more than this
-------------------------------
I've been listening to this song a lot lately. There was a time in my life when the emotion/longing described in this song was at the forefront of my mind all the time, and I listened to this song a lot then too. One of the reasons I've always loved The Cure so much is that a lot of their songs really resonate with me. Not too deep but not too shallow either, and there's a heart-on-your-sleeve quality to a lot of them in addition to a rawness, which I generally think of as intrinsic characteristics of passion.
I also love The Cure because Robert Smith is a hottie. Oh, right, and also a genius. But, yeah. A hottie. He looks like he'd be ready to cuddle and take a nap at any moment, and he has a killer smile that he sort of saves up and suddenly unleashes when you're not expecting it. My kind of guy.
I can barely believe how much gorgeousness the Lab has created in the past few months. I have been thinking that after the hugeness of Carnaval Diabolique, Halloweenies, Order of the Dragon, Yule, a whole new Salon set, and the ToT inquisition, they'd probably be taking a break for a while. I thought that the next CD act would be kinda small, the size of one of the first two acts, and I thought that Lupercalia would be on the small side as well. Maybe 6 or 7 bottles.
Here are my thoughts and what I got:
HUNGER MOON. Ozone, white sandalwood, crystallized white amber, verbena, oakmoss, clary sage, and a hint of white citrus rind.
I bought a bottle because I always buy Lunacy bottles. However, I don't expect to like this. Citrus and herbs are usually bad for me.
BAKENEKO. Warm amber musk, Satsuma tangerine, black tea leaf, cardamom, cherry blossom and cinnamon.
Again, I bought a bottle because it's a Lunacy blend, but I'm not sure it'll work on me. My skin amps cardamom and cinnamon to overwhelming proportions. Both in the same blend is very probably a deal-breaker.
ABHISARIKA. Damascus rose, African orchid, cream accord, and Kashmir musk.
I love the idea behind these. I would have bought the whole set if I had enough money. I heavily debated whether to buy a bottle of this one, and I probably should have. But I just wound up joining a decant circle to buy a decant of it. At least it'll be up for a while so I'll still have a chance to get a bottle later. I don't usually like blends that are too rosy, but the orchid, cream, and Kashmir musk sound wonderful.
KALAHANTARIKA. hyssop, lavender, balsam of Peru, jonquil, and elemi.
Potentially too strong for me. I'll be interested to find out what it smells like, but I'm not going to go out of my way for it for a while.
KHANDITA. fiery saffron, neroli, severe black musk, rose otto, and a harsh splinter of rosemary.
It's funny, I was all prepared to order this one until I saw the rosemary, and then I balked. Maybe I shouldn't have. I usually like the other notes.
PROSHITAPATHIKA. blue iris, fennel, dark musk, verbena, and a drop of star anise.
This is the other one that probably won't work for me. I tend to dislike sharp scents, and the fennel and star anise might be too much for me. Also I usually don't like verbena at all.
SVADHINAOPATIKA. golden amber, oude, red sandalwood, massoia bark, honey, and currant.
Um... yeah, I got a bottle of this one. Holy crap. That sounds marvelous.
VASAKASAJJA. skin musk, wild orchid, champaca flower, amaranth, tonka bean, and French vanilla.
Had to get a bottle of this one too. It sounds feminine but not overly so, and rich and slightly decadent. I love the description, too.
VIRAHOTKANTITA. blue lilac, snowdrop, bergamot, night-blooming cereus, frankincense, Himalayan cedar, and stargazer lily.
This definitely sounds like it will smell like sadness. I bet it'll be very pretty, too. I'd like to find a decant of it.
VIPRALABDA. benzoin, Greek sage, hay, melaleuca ericifolia, oakmoss, and blue chamomile.
I have no idea what that will smell like. I'd like to try a decant of it.
DOLCE STIL NUOVO. rose otto, carnation, vanilla flower, lavender and jasmine with the clarity of crystalline white musk and the warmth of golden amber.
Eek. Those flowers are usually much too strong on me. I'd try a decant of this, but I doubt it'll work for me.
CHINTAMANI-DHUPA. Pound well together sandal-wood, Kunku, costus, Krishnaguru, Suvasika-puspha, white vala and the bark of the Deodaru pine; and, after reducing them to fine powder, mix it with honey and thoroughly dry.
Got a bottle of this because I'm dying to know what it smells like. The description is very intriguing.
KANISHTA. black opium, Haitian patchouli, jasmine sambac, French magnolia and kush.
I didn't realize until after I submitted my order that I did NOT have this one in my order. Stupid oversight. I really meant to buy a bottle of this. It will be in my next order. This sounds like exactly the sort of scent that I love.
KHAJURAHO 2007. honey, date palm, tuberose, davana blossom, amber, white sandalwood, vanilla bean, Damask rose, and champaca flower.
I had a bottle of this from last year, and although I thought it smelled fine, I never wore it. Sometimes I'd pick it up thinking I might wear it that day, but I always put it back down and picked something else. I like the scent, it's just not me, I guess.
LUPERCI 2007. raw, down and dirty patchouli, Gurjam balsam, and essence of Sampson Root sweetened with the heightened sexuality of beeswax, virile juniper, oakmoss, ambrette seed over honey and East African musk.
I had a bottle from last year, and I thought it was going to smell good on me. I was really excited to try it. But both times I tried it, all I got out of it was juniper. One of my least favorite notes. My husband didn't like it on me either. So I swapped the bottle, and I've never regretted it.
NIGHT'S PAVILION 2007. White musk, osmanthus, Nile lily and frankincense.
I may have tried this last year, but I don't remember it very well. I do know that every time I've seen it up for swap/sale I've passed it over rapidly. I believe that I did try it and I thought it was too sweet and feminine for me.
THE OBLATION. A stirring blend of dianthus, French lavender, blackberry, and white honey.
I think that poem is wonderful and moving. In the old days when I had a job I would have bought a bottle of this just from the poem alone. However, now that I'm unemployed and my husband decides how much money I can spend, this would have been a risk for me because of the lavender. I couldn't resist signing up for a decant, though. I bet I'll like this despite the lavender.
THE PERFUMED GARDEN 2007. Myrrh and Moroccan jasmine with apple peel, Indian sandalwood, myrtle, quince, citron, and thyme poured over soft musk.
I had a bottle of last year's version, and I thought it was too feminine so I sold it. Then I got together with another BPALer and she had a bottle of it she wanted to swap. I sniffed it and tried on a little bit, and I realized that I do like it. It is feminine, but I'm not as anti-feminine as I used to be. So now I have that bottle.
RED LANTERN 2007. Golden amber, blonde tobacco, Sudanese black coconut, rich caramel, black currant, white opium and delphinium laced with a sensual blend of Asian spice.
I had a bottle of last year's version for many months, and I finally realized that I never wear it and I might as well sell it. I just sold it a couple of weeks ago. It's a great scent, and I liked it, but I see no reason why a whole bottle of it should be sitting in my BPAL box getting no love when they are lots of people around who would wear it and enjoy it.
SMUT 2007. Three swarthy, smutty musks sweetened with sugar and woozy with dark booze notes.
I still have at least three bottles of last year's version. Maybe four. This is one of my husband's very favorite scents on me. I'm not allowed to wear it out of the house.
ELIXIR X: GRR. Headache relief.
ELIXIR XI: OOF. Sinus pain relief.
ELIXIR XII: UGH. Muscle ache relief.
I didn't try any of these, but that imp three-pack is very tempting. I think I'll order the imp pack with my next order.
And now for the OMG Carnaval Diabolique scents:
THE PARLIAMENT OF MONSTERS. Dust, incense, wet tobacco, and a curl of opium smoke.
I signed up for a decant of this. I expect to like it, but I'm not sure I'll like it enough for a whole bottle. I already have other bottles that have a similar scent.
ARACHNINA, THE SPIDER GIRL. A swirling, hypnotic perfume of black currant, poppy, red and black musk, lilies, nicotiana, and patchouli.
I signed up for a decant of this too, but that was sort of dumb. I should have bought a bottle. There is no note in there that I don't like. In fact, I like them all a lot. I'm a huge sucker for red musk.
ESHE, A VISION OF LIFE-IN-DEATH. The perfume of life-in-death: embalming herbs, black myrrh, white sandalwood, black orchid, paperwhites, tomb dust, and Moroccan jasmine.
The description for this one creeped me out. In a good way, of course. I didn't sign up for a decant of this because I was put off by the embalming herbs. Those usually overpower a blend on my skin. I will eventually swap for a decant of it to try, though.
FAIZA, THE BLACK MAMBA. black amber, caraway, oakmoss, green sandalwood, bergamot, jasmine sambac, gardenia, orange pulp, vanilla, blackberry, black musk, white honey, ti leaf, and ginger.
I got a decant of this because there are quite a few notes in there that are usually not good on me. (oakmoss, jasmine, gardenia, ginger). However... those are all notes that have on occasion surprised me by not ruining a blend. So, we'll see.
ASP VIPER: Snake Oil with red mandarin, myrrh, and almond.
Want to try a decant. Might be great.
AUSTRALIAN COPPERHEAD: Snake Oil with acai berry, amber, cardamom, neroli, and smoked vanilla.
Not sure about the cardamom, but the other ones sound good. Will like to swap for a decant eventually.
BANDED SEA SNAKE: Snake Oil with oakmoss, sea moss, and olive leaf.
Hmmm. I'll try it eventually, but I'm in no hurry on this one. Oakmoss and sea moss are usually not so great for me.
BOOMSLANG: Snake Oil with cocoa, teakwood, and rice milk.
Bought a decant of this. I bet those notes smell lovely with snake oil.
CORAL SNAKE: Snake Oil with blood orange, red apple, lemon peel, plumeria, and gardenia.
Hmmm. Probably not. Apple, lemon, and gardenia are usually no-nos for me.
COTTONMOUTH: Snake Oil with linden blossom, calla lily, passion flower, and narcissus.
Snake Oil with a bunch of floral notes? I'm not sure what that will smell like. I'd like to try a decant of it, though.
DEATH ADDER: Snake Oil with vetiver, black coconut, vanilla, and opoponax.
I allowed myself to buy ONE Snake Pit bottle unsniffed, and this is the one I chose. I bet I'll love this. Opoponax, vanilla, and vetiver are three of my favorite notes.
GREEN TREE VIPER: Snake Oil with four mints, bergamot, and green tea.
Mint is usually not my thing.
HABU: Snake Oil with ho wood, teak, black musk, and bamboo.
I carefully considered this one. I didn't buy a decant of it but probably should have. This will be one of the first ones I'll be looking for when people start swapping/selling their decants.
KING COBRA: Snake Oil with orris, frankincense, and copal.
I like copal but frankincense tends to make blends too high-pitched and sweet on me.
SAW-SCALED VIPER: Snake Oil with cinnamon, cassia, and red ginger.
Much too hot for me. I had a vial of Beth's experimental cinnamon Snake Oil, and it was too cinnamony for me. I like plain Snake Oil better.
TEMPLE VIPER: Snake Oil with sugar cane, frankincense, champaca, opoponax, labdanum, and hyssop.
This one might be one I like despite the frankincense. I truly love champaca and opoponax, so I bought a decant of it.
WESTERN DIAMONDBACK: Oil with leather, tonka bean, red sandalwood, and sage.
I didn't get a decant of this, mostly due to my dumbness. I should have. I will look for this one first when people start selling/swapping decants.
HOPE & FAITH, THE SIAMESE TWINS. Hope is sugared violet, Faith is sugared rose.
Love the description for this one, but those florals usually don't work for me.
ISAAC, THE LIVING SKELETON. Bourbon, tobacco, dry bone, bay rum aftershave, and sleazy cologne.
I bought a decant of this because I think my husband will like it.
KATANIYA, THE CLOCKWORK WOMAN. Gentle flowers over hot metal, shocked to life with electricity.
I don't know what this will smell like. I'd like to try a decant eventually. I often like the metallic blends, but I already have several of them.
MESKHENET, THE VULTURE MAIDEN. Frankincense, hyssop, hibiscus, river reeds, orris root, palm frond, and olibanum.
I don't think those notes will work for me. I'll try a decant eventually, but it's not high up on my list.
THALASSA, THE GALAPAGOS MERMAID. Seaweed, kelp, salty ocean spray, bitter almond, night-blooming jasmine, frankincense, and benzoin.
VERY unlikely to work for me. I don't like the scent of seaweed and kelp at all.
TIRESIAS, THE ANDROGYNE. Dark, moody, and bittersweet: black currant, patchouli, tobacco, cinnamon leaf, caramel, muguet, and red sandalwood.
Great description, and I love the song Gloomy Sunday. I think I might like this one a lot -- I bought a decant of it, and I'm betting it will be my first CD Act III bottle purchase (after Death Adder, of course).
THE WILD MEN OF JEZIRAT AL TENNYN. Fiery, primal, and precociously diabolical: red amber, Spanish moss, Indonesian patchouli, ambergris, red pepper, two cloves, and vanilla flower.
I wonder if my husband would like this. He liked Fire Eater. It's just too hot-sounding for me.
WULRIC, THE WOLFMAN. Friendly, charming, and cuddly, but possessing one hell of a mean streak: cocoa absolute, French vanilla, birch tar, lavender, bourbon vetiver, wild musk, clary sage, and cistus.
This might smell very good on my husband. I bought a decant of it so he can try it.
ZARITA, THE DOLL GIRL. white carnation, iris, orange blossom, and sugared cream.
This will probably be too feminine for me, but I wouldn't mind trying it.
PRIALA, THE HUMAN PHOENIX. Three deep, dark myrrhs, smoke, and cinnamon bark.
I bought a decant of this, and I'm really impatient to try it. I love myrrh and smoke. I wonder if I will end up wanting to buy a whole bottle.
Has it been a month since I wrote anything here? Sheesh. I thought it had been maybe a couple of weeks.
I would really like to start writing more in this blog because I don't have any RL friends who are into BPAL, except my husband. My LJ journal is mostly just full of entries that have a company's name in the title and then a list of all their products I've tried and whether or not I liked them. I suppose it's not helpful to anyone but me.
And I don't want to be all over the place making all kinds of posts everywhere about every BPAL oil I try because I don't want to be a pest. Plus, it seems like it's very easy to irritate people on the Internet, so I'm cautious about that. (If someone heard me talking it would sound different from the way text looks.) People tell me that I have an extremely expressive face, and I also gesture with my hands a lot, and all of that gets lost when I type.
So I guess I'll just post here. It seems pretty unobtrusive. And I'm pretty sure no one is reading this anyway.
I organize thoughts with bullet points. I'm sorry. I spent 12 years writing technical manuals, and this is a habit I cannot break. Again, my apologies. On with the blog!
- This is bordering on TMI, but: One of my dogs (or maybe both, I'm not sure) has been tooting all night. We had to evacuate the room twice. It's driving me crazy. As far as I know they've eaten nothing except kibble and their usual treats today, so I'm worried about what they've gotten into that I don't know about yet.
- When we got our tax forms back I looked at my income from last year and started to wonder how much I'd be getting back. My husband said, "You mean WE'll be getting back." He reminded me that we split my income 50/50. I sputtered, "But, but... that was MY money, that I made, and I'm broke..." (I haven't worked since April.) He was right though, we did agree two years ago that my income was used as our discretionary money and it was split 50/50. I haven't worked in so long that I forgot. I was mad and stomped around and behaved like a jerk. I finally said I was REALLY looking forward to that extra $20 I'd be getting in the tax refund, in the most sarcastic voice I could muster. He said he expected my half of the refund would be much larger than that, considering that we split HIS income tax refund 50/50 as well. Whoops! I forgot about that agreement too. Here I was being all pissy that he was taking half of my paltry refund when he was also giving me half of his much larger one. I slinked off silently feeling like a toad.
- I've been watching Father Ted on DVD for the past couple of days, and today I found this: www.doogle.org. This will make no sense to you unless you've seen Father Ted, but I think it's hilarious.
I usually get a drink from the vending machine when I'm at school. More specifically, I usually get a Mountain Dew. I like the taste, and the caffeine keeps me awake during class.
Tonight, I decided to be a grown-up. I'm 35 now, after all. Probably time to stop drinking sodas. I'm afraid I'm at the age where I can no longer tell myself that I will address my bad habits when I'm older. I am older now.
So... I chose the Diet Lipton Green Tea with Citrus instead of the Mountain Dew. And get this: It was good! I mean, spectacularly good. I really like it. I feel kind of stupid for drinking so many Mountain Dews when I could have been drinking this tea drink instead the whole time. The taste is great, and it has zero calories and no carbonation. (One of the reasons I like Mtn Dew is that it seems to have fewer bubbles than other sodas. Not a fan of the bubbles.)
I'm never going to like carrots as much as potato chips, but I wonder how many other healthier things I can find to replace other bad habits. I did already replace most of my cheeseburgers with Boca cheeseburgers (yummy!), and now I've found this diet green tea drink instead of Mountain Dew.
I think I'll make an effort to try new things for the next few weeks and see what I find.
ETA: This was from April 10.
I can't find the appropriate thread right now so I'm putting this here.
Holy fricking crap. This has been one of the best days I've had in a long time. I'm thinking it ranks right up there with the day we brought our puppy Prudence home.
I had so many packages delivered today that the mailman left one of those plastic mail bins outside my front door. And this is what was in it:
My March update order with 5mLs of Peony Moon, the two Monster Baits, Saturn, and Uranus. And 3 imp packs with imps of all but two of the March GC updates, plus 13 frimps. YAY!
I also got packages from herbhealer (Thunderbird!!) and sheila (with tons of stuff off my wishlist that I bought from her, including a 5mL of Beatrice, which is now my spring scent!).
In addition to that, I got my "mystery box" from eBay, which had in it decants of Peony Moon and the Monster Baits! Plus tons of other stuff too, including 7 BPAL imps!
I also got my fabulous order from Arcana, with soaps and perfume oils, and they frimped me a couple of oils plus a free big bar of Dia de los Muertos soap!
And here is where I'm saving the best for last.
I got a total of 13 decants that I bought from lorajc, including these:
Snowblind, Skadi, Queen of Spades , and FORMULA 54.
This has been my BEST BPAL DAY EVER!!!!
Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who sent me these great packages!!!
This evening I was reading articles about clinical trials in the New England Journal of Medicine for a research paper I've been working on. After reading two of them, it suddenly dawned on me that this is the first time in my life I have understood enough about medicine, medical terminology, anatomy, and physiology to even have an idea of what they're talking about in those articles. In the past it's all been way over my head.
Today, I got it.
This has been a good day.
Cross-posting to Reviews forum and my LJ journal.
I got the second package from kakiphony, which incldues Leanan Sidhe, Neo-Tokyo, Obatala, Tweedledee, and Vixen. Here are my reviews.
Leanan Sidhe - Her perfume is a crush of Irish herbs and flowers, Gaelic mists, and nighttime dew. While the scent is strong, it's quite herby and green. Reminds me of Irish Spring soap and dryer sheets. It smells bright, clean, and fresh. It ends up (after an hour or two) smelling like a faint green floral. So when it's strong it's herby, and when it's faint it's floral. Interesting.
Neo-Tokyo - Urban metallics and an ozone-tinged breath of electric light mingled with reedy bamboo, crisp mountain air, cherry blossoms, delicate orchid and a splash of playful, wet fruits. Smells mostly aquatic to me, but sweet too. The florals are modest and not overly strong. This oil smells cute. I like it, and might get an imp of my own. Probably not a bottle though.
Obatala - Obatala’s ofrenda is soft, white and pure: milk, coconut meat, shea butter and cool, refreshing water. It's funny, I remember reviewing this when I first got the imp -- I thought the coconut had a suntan lotion smell and I didn't like it. This time I thought it would be different because it started out as a creamy, dark coconut. But after about 30 minutes, that suntan lotion scent I remembered was back. So... this one's still a "no" for me.
Tweedledee - Ridiculous! Kumquat, white pepper, white tea and orange blossom. At first, pepper. But that was for about three seconds. Then a very bright and juicy fruit scent came up quick and shared the spotlight with pepper and tea. I thought it was an odd scent, and a little jarring. I sniffed it again 15 minutes later and that weird discordant pepper note was gone -- it's mostly just bright fruit. This is an interesting scent, but I don't imagine I'd ever reach for this imp instead of other ones that I truly love.
Vixen - Lascivious, flirtatious, and vampy as hell. A true heartbreaker’s perfume. The innocence of orange blossom tainted by the beguiling scents of ginger and patchouli. Vixen reminds me quite a lot of Dior's Poison, which was my signature scent throughout college -- but it's better. It smells exactly like the description says it does. It's been on my list of favorites since the beginning and I expect it always will be. Vixen was one of the first BPAL oils I tried, and now whenever I smell it I am transported back in time to that evening, when I was in total awe that anything could ever smell that good. There's nothing quite like BPAL newbieness, and Vixen brings it back to me.
YAY! School started today! I went to my statistics class tonight, and I think it'll be interesting. We have to do a statistics project for the class, and I'm thinking about doing something related to BPAL (of course). The only question is.... what?
I thought maybe I could figure out from the descriptions which notes were most popular and least popular in the Lab's blends (which ones occur most and least frequently), and then do a small survey and find out which notes are most and least popular among people who buy BPAL.
Obviously I can't list ALL the notes, that would be immense. So that would give me a chance to use the "random sampling" method to pick maybe 10 or 20 notes. And then ask people something like "do not like/neutral/like" to see if that tells me anything about whether the notes that are most popular in BPAL blends are also most popular among BPAL consumers. And vice versa.
I'm kind of afraid to do it, though, in case the whole thing backfires. What if it turns out that there are notes that are consistently disliked in like 85% of the blends or something? I can't see that being something the Lab would want advertised, even if it's just among the 30 people in my class.
Does anyone have a better idea for a project I could do? Or any thoughts about whether this would be an interesting project? Now that I've thought of it, I do kinda want to know how it would turn out...
I was at the airport yesterday picking up my husband, and I was sitting in one of those rows of chairs. A woman and her child sat down behind me, facing the other direction. For the next 20 minutes (until I could no longer stand it and got up and left), this woman lied to her kid, made him cry, berated him, and basically told him he sucked. Not only that, but she had this whiny nasal voice with a pitch that could bend steel, and she spoke very loudly.
Apparently the kid (probably 3-4 years old) had just gotten a Spiderman toy less than an hour ago, and he threw it into some baggage bin or something, and they had to sit there and wait for airport personnel to retrieve it for them. So the woman ran through the list of other things she could have bought with that $8 instead of wasting it on a toy for the kid which he then "threw away." She told him that his dad works hard for that $8 and it was not nice of him to throw Daddy's money away. She told him that when she told Daddy about what he did with the toy, Daddy would probably never buy him another toy again. She pointed to a policewoman and told him that she was going to go over and tell the policewoman what he had done and she would come over and arrest him and take him to jail. This is when the kid started to cry. The crying just spurred her on, she then described how miserable he would be all alone, without Mommy or Daddy and no toys at all either.
All of this because the kid had a toy and did what kids do when they have toys that look like superheroes who fly through the air: He threw it. She sat there and let him throw the toy repeatedly, and then when it landed in a bad spot she berated him for 20 minutes in public, doled out the "wait until Daddy finds out" threat, and then told him he's going to jail. Of course none of this is her fault, it's all the kid's fault. Unbelievable.
I have no idea at all what gave that woman the idea that it's acceptable to talk to a little child like that. I honestly can't imagine that it would be natural to anyone, so I guess she must have seen someone else do it and figured it was a good idea. Which sickens me even more.
My blog never gets bumped whenever I add a new entry. Sigh. Poor little guy. It hurts his feelings.
And even though I have written several entries, in the blog list it still has a big fat ZERO for number of entries.
I wonder what this "Publish" button is for...
Here's what I got imps of:
BLACK LILY -- This is beautiful, one of my favorite BPAL florals. I already have a bottle, but I need the imp for my "entire GC" imp collection.
DEVIL'S CLAW -- I have no idea what to expect from this, smoky brown-black sounds good... not sure about the yellow-bright.
LOVE-LIES-BLEEDING -- Really, really looking forward to this. Beth does "velvety" really well.
SLOBBERING PINE -- I don't usually like pine scents, but this one sounds different. Also I like the word slobbering.
THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS -- I haven't had much luck with the Funereal Oils, but I'm interested in this because of the cemetery grass and lilies.
LILIUM INTER SPINAS -- I usually like fig, but green fig might be a little too strong for me. Not sure about this one.
THE TEMPTATION -- Not sure about this one either -- might be too floral for me.
MANIA -- I can't imagine what this might smell like. I think I might like it, though. A lot.
HORREUR SYMPATHIQUE -- I expect I'm going to love this one.
Here's what I got bottles of:
BLACK ICE -- Sleet, vetiver, cold wind, and smoke? Yes please!
THE DARKLING THRUSH -- Everything in this sounds good to me except maybe the violet. We'll see.
HALÔA -- Frankincense sometimes makes the whole blend too sweet for me, but everything else in it sounds good, so I took a chance.
KNECHT RUPRECHT -- This might be a little too woodsy for me but I like the poem so I'll give it a shot.
KRAMPUS -- This one sounds the BEST. I always like red musk and leather.
SNOW-FLAKES -- Not entirely sure what this is going to smell like, but I just have this good feeling about it. I love snow flakes.
SOL INVICTUS -- This is the one that most worries me from my order. I think I haven't worn Et Lux Fuit even one time after testing it, and this one could be similar. I like amber, saffron, and heliotrope, but everything else in it could be iffy.
THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT -- This one sounds pretty good. It might be a little too spicy for me, but I have to try anything with myrrh and dark musk.
These are the ones I hope to find decants of:
HERR DROSSELMEYER 2006 -- My husband has 4 bottles of last year's version, so we probably don't need any more. I wouldn't mind getting an imp to compare though.
JACOB'S LADDER 2006 -- I've had a bottle of last year's version for almost 8 months and I've worn it exactly twice. I like it, but I never seem to reach for it. I'd like a new decant of it to see if it smells any different aged though.
JÓLASVEINAR -- The dealbreaker in this one was the dirt and moss. They go bad on me more often than not, and dirt always overpowers every other note. I'd try a decant or sniffie, but I don't expect this to work.
LICK IT AGAIN -- Didn't really like Lick It because I don't care for peppermint scents. I'd try it to make sure, but I have big doubts.
MIDNIGHT MASS 2006 -- I had a bottle of last year's version, swapped it, had second thoughts and got another bottle, then swapped that one too. I think it's just too sweet an incense scent for me. I like darker incense like Al Azif better.
THE SNOW MAIDEN -- This just sounded a little too young and innocent for me personally. I'd like to try it, but from the description I don't think I'll like it.
STARDUST 2006 -- Still have a bottle of last year's version, and I never wear it.
YULE -- Holly berry, mistletoe, thyme, verbena, evergreen, frankincense, and juniper are ALL usually no-nos for me. I highly doubt I would like this.
And I'm going to have to make another order and get a bottle of 13 because I completely forgot to order it.
I have sent a crapload of money to the Lab in the past three months. Seriously. Way too much. I've been saying for the past month or so that I need to do some serious reducing of my collection, but I barely did any. Now it has become a dire need. I have no more room for more BPAL bottles, yet more will be on their way soon.
cordia #4: Lady of Shalott, Lilith, Love Me, Magus, Othello, Undertow, and Whitechapel. I hadn't written reviews for ANY of these yet, but the only one I didn't have was Undertow.
Lady of Shalott - The scent of calm waters just before a raging storm, limned with achingly-beautiful blooms, an icy scent, but somehow warm, and mirror-bright: bold gardenia, crystalline musk, muguet, water blossoms, clear, slightly tart aquatic notes and a crush of white ginger. The gardenia is prominent, but I don't mind it as much as I usually do. The ginger and musk is a nice combination -- they keep the floral notes from being too heady. It's slightly aquatic as well... kind of reminds me of flowers floating on a pond. Very pretty.
Lilith - Mother of Demons, Vengeful Fury, Darkest Seductress, Queen of the Djinn, Goddess of the Gate. Red wine, myrrh, black musk, and attar of rose. This smells very fruity and sweet at first. It doesn't smell like fury to me. Can definitely pick out the red wine in it, and the rose is there too. This reminds me a lot of Wanda, except that Wanda smells entirely of red wine on my skin, and in Lilith there's a little bit of rose too. I like this one better than Wanda, but when it's dry the wine scent is still a little too strong for me.
Love Me - A commanding, dominant oil that increases sexual magnetism, creates an intense and irresistible air of attraction, and amplifies potency. I can't comment on how well this works for its purpose, but I like the scent of it. It smells spicy, like cinnamon, but not overly so. There's also something powdery underneath the spice. Maybe some kind of wood, too. It definitely smells like it would attract people, I've been sniffing my wrist compulsively since I put it on. I like this a lot, even just as a perfume.
Magus - An ancient blend, swollen with arcane power: galangal, high john essence, frankincense, cedar, and sandalwood. I read frankincense and cedar in the notes and thought I wasn't going to like Magus. I'm surprised to find that I do like it. It's in the same vein as Aureus and Cathedral, but it doesn't smell as much like a pencil box as either of those do. The frankincense doesn't get overly sweet on me like it usually does, and the cedar doesn't smell quite as peppery as usual. This is kind of comforting and soft. I like it a lot better than Cathedral.
Othello - Arabian musk with two roses and a bevy of Middle Eastern and Indian spices. I don't think this is masculine. I see what other reviewers mean about the fabric softener, though -- there's something crisp about this scent. It actually reminds me of a soap scent. It's not my favorite rose blend, but I like this better than some others.
Undertow - The Dark Side of Air: a high pitched, tangy, clear scent -- light China rain deepened by murky vetivert. I smell some kind of mint in this, or possibly eucalyptus. I can't really smell any vetivert in it. It's definitely high-pitched and tangy, like the description says. It does seem airy, too. It's not the kind of scent I wear, but it smells pretty good. After it dries it smells less minty and much sweeter. It reminds me of Pez.
Whitechapel - A gentlemen's blend, possessed of dignity, charm and refinement, but in truth masking a corrupted, hideous, soulless core. White musk, lime, lilac and citron. This smells strongly of lime at first... but most blends that contain lime usually smell mostly of lime on me at first. There's a little bit of lilac underneath the lime that starts to come through as the lime fades out, and the lilac keeps getting stronger while it dries. But as the lime goes away a lemony scent takes its place, and I don't care for lemon. It makes the lilac smell sour, and I like lilac so much that I don't want it to be altered like that.
The parts of this that I like are things I can find in other oils I like better: I can get my lilac fix from Cordelia, and for a clean crisp masculine citrus scent I prefer Villain over Whitechapel.
